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| The Traveller (Mosafer) |
Kiarostami's striking first feature reveals a subtle yet telling shift in emphasis from the parable-like tales of his shorter films to a more narratively driven and dramatic, tragi-comic character piece.
A young boy's desire to attend a soccer match in Tehran sees him scamming all those around him in order to achieve his dream, even pretending to take photos of classmates with an empty camera - a fascinating early touchstone for the director's cinematic concerns.
Screens with
The Chorus (Kiarostami, 17 mins, Iran, 1982), an experiment in sound and seclusion in which an old man keeps the clamorous world at bay. The one line (unsubtitled) chant of the children "Open the door grandpa" is tempting to interpret!
